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Politics Beats Science, Again

Here’s a scene you may find familiar: Government experts carefully study a problem, and come to a conclusion based on scientific evidence. They get over-ruled by bureaucrats who seem more concerned about politics than science. This isn’t a historical anecdote from the Bush administration. I’m talking about the Obama administration.

Recently, the Food and Drug Administration’s decided to make the so-called morning after pill, or Plan B, available to adolescent girls under 17 without a prescription. The F.D.A. had carefully studied the issue – from a scientific perspective – and concluded that the pill was safe and effective at preventing pregnancy and that girls under 17 were perfectly capable of making the decision to use it.

But Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, decided to reverse the decision, effectively throwing science out the window.

We know why conservatives don’t like Plan B. Some think it’s too much like abortion. Others just don’t want to allow women to make their own choices about their health and their bodies. (The Bush administration, you probably remember, resisted allowing any use of Plan B, and ultimately had to be forced by a court to make it available over the counter to 17-year-olds. The court left it up to the FDA to decide whether to allow younger girls to buy it without a prescription.)

But what’s the Democratic administration’s reasoning? Ms. Sebelius is hallucinating if she thinks that not allowing Plan B to be sold over the counter to younger girls is going to get Republicans to stop attacking President Obama, or refrain from cutting the F.D.A. budget.

At least someone is objecting. Greg Sargent reports on his blog, Plum Line, that 14 Senators – Patty Murray, Barbara Boxer, Kirsten Gillibrand, Maria Cantwell and 10 men – have written to Ms. Sebelius demanding that she produce the scientific evidence behind her decision.

That may prove difficult. I suspect that if she had a scientific rationale, we would have heard it already.

I wish I could say this was the first time that Obama administration officials seemed to abandon good sense and principles in the pointless hunt for Republicans who are willing to listen to reason and compromise. At some point, they have to stop doing that. Don’t they?